In 1994, the Lloyd District in Portland faced a dilemma. The second largest employment area in Portland(offices, a shopping mall, and some residences wanted to plan for growth and double the number of employees from 15,000 to 30,000 in 15 years.

Even with limited freeway access, 76% of workers and shoppers drive alone to the area,10% used transit, and less than 1% rode a bike. Transportation studies indicated that if drive-alone rates remained doubling workers would create tremendous gridlock. The city would also need to spend half a billion dollars – 5 miles of highway lanes, at $100 million per mile – to support the new traffic. Additionally the district would need $500 million of new parking structures.

Stakeholders from Bureau of Planning, the Commissioner of Transportation, the General Manager of the transit agency (TriMet), businesses, and property owners got together to see if there was any way out of this seemingly intractable dilemma.

What if the percentage of people driving alone was slashed by more than half?

Part of the solution was better transit service. The team collected and geocoded the addresses of the employees in the district, identifying locations where large clusters of employees lived. Then Portland’s transit agency created three new express buses travelling from those locations.

Transit was made more affordable. In 1994, parking was free. The District added parking meters to formerly free parking spaces. Then, 51% the revenue from the parking meters was used to fund discounted transit passes ($330 instead of $1,100) and alternative commute programs. Businesses commited to buying a transit pass for every employee. For every 2,000 transit passes sold, the transit agency provided a new bus.

The new development plan prohibited new surface parking lots and limited the amount of parking – only 2 vehicle parking spaces for every 4 employees, with max parking ratios for retail/commercial space.

The stakeholders also set a 10% bike mode share goal. The city agreed to build bike lanes, and businesses agreed that all buildings would have bike parking available for at least 10% of employees. Over time the district added 2,500 bike parking spaces.

Today, the Lloyd District consists of 8 property owners with 500 businesses, employing ~23,000 employees, and housing ~600 people. The drive-alone mode share is down from 80% to about 40%. Peak hour vehicle trips have actually declined by over 1,000 vehicles per hour.

The scarcity of vehicle parking (relative to other commercial developments) hasn’t scared away tenants or visitors. Just the opposite – the building vacancy rate is 4%, which is the highest occupancy of any district in the state. Employment grew steadily, even during the post 2008 recession. Visitor trips grew from 15 million to 20 million per year. The district plans to add another 4,000 housing units, to further improve travel mode share by enabling people to live close to work.